Forever and Also
by Min Daae
Summary: Post 5.22 AU, in which nothing at all is fixed. First chapter Sam's POV, second Dean's.
1. Forever

Sam doesn't think, just drives.

The road sweeps on by with ease, going nowhere in particular, letting everything on the sides beyond the black asphalt vanish. It's the third car he's stolen tonight, running each one until the tank is empty before jumping in another.

A couple times he almost calls Bobby. A few more times he almost calls Dean. Eventually, the constant reach and pull back wearies him and he throws the phone out of the car altogether. He can almost hear it shatter on the blacktop. Maybe he'll regret that later, but he kind of doubts it. There's no one else he would even consider calling.

The gas light comes on with a ping and Sam jerks out of his reverie to check the next road sign. Nothing for forty miles, and then only a rest stop.

He stops the car. Dean is far behind him, all unaware, and he still doesn't even know where he's going.

_Going hunting, _is the easy answer. He has no tools, though, no resources, nowhere to begin. But he could get all that without too much trouble, couldn't he? And it's not like he's never hunted alone before (four months plus six months, that's over a year, isn't it? His head doesn't feel quite right anymore) and what else is he supposed to do? He won't drag his sorry carcass into Dean's pretty new life, and Bobby's probably doing fine on his own too. He has no life of his own (not really) to waste on hunting. And it's the least he can do, isn't it? After everything?

Sam looks up at the stars. His thoughts are all full of pieces and shards of broken glass that it's easy to cut himself on if he doesn't step carefully. He doesn't have the energy right now to step carefully, and they rip him to shreds with every twitch he makes.

He goes to sleep sprawled on the hood of the car like a dead man.

"Hey, you okay?"

No time has passed, all time has passed when he stares at the young man trying to shake him awake, looking anxious and worried. He frowns and tries to focus. "I'm not bleeding," he says, semi-coherently, "And I'm not dead. So yeah. I'm okay."

"You didn't look okay."

There's a car on the road. Sam glances at the beige Taurus that he's been driving for who knows how long, out of gas and out of life, kind of like the driver. He forces a smile. "My car broke down and I don't have a phone. Must've fallen asleep waiting for someone to drive by. Can I have a lift into the nearest place with - civilization?"

"Sure," says the young man, easy and naïve and friendly as he sticks out his hand to help Sam onto his feet. "Long as you don't mind heading southwest, the closest town's that way. Where are you headed?"

"Nowhere," Sam said, and then laughed breathlessly. "Anywhere. Southwest is good. Southwest is great. Thanks." As an afterthought, because he's almost forgotten that people like to know names, he adds, "I'm Sam. Thanks."

"You're welcome," says the young man, tugging Sam upright, and looking up (and _up_) at him with a grin. "Glad I could help."

His name is Jackson, Sam learns, and he really is glad he could help. He offers to call ahead, offers a sandwich, talks about his family and how they're driving him crazy. Sam refuses the call and the sandwich, and just listens to the man talk, keeping his eyes dry only because he doesn't blink, not once.

Jackson drops him off in front of the garage, and it's only with difficulty that Sam gets him to leave, mostly because it's hard not to just scream that if the nice young man doesn't leave, he'll probably end up dead. There's a payphone on the street and Sam stares at it. He could call Bobby, just let him know that he's alive. Could call Dean and let _him _know he's alive.

He steals another car. The black one next to the Volkswagon he ended up taking was nicer, better looking, better condition, but to Sam it looked like the Impala and he would never make it driving alone in a car that looked like the Impala.

After Lucifer, the hunts seem surprisingly easy. The ghosts don't even make him blink anymore. Not much does. _Numb, _that's what he thinks this state of being is known as, and _numb _is as good a word as any, probably better than _dead. _

Cas turns up. "Where's Dean?" Is the first thing he asks.

"Indiana," Sam says, blandly, and is tempted just for a moment to blast Castiel's ass out of here and tell him never to come back. "Same as he has been."

Cas seems taken aback. "Why?"

"He has a family here. Another family." A better family. Ickle Ben's never going to start the Apocalypse, Sam is sure of that. Daddy Dean will never let Ben near what really happened.

"You miss him," Cas says, and he sounds puzzled. "And he misses you, so why-?"

"No," Sam says, and Cas stares at him with an attempted at angelic innocence. "He's retired. I'm not. It's as simple as that."

"He needs you, Sam," Castiel says, and he sounds almost desperate.

"No," said Sam, and got up and left the room. Time to move on. "And if you tell him where I am – just don't. Okay? Leave him alone. Let him have a little peace. Okay?"

Cas is gone when he turns around.

The demons are running scared. Sam's found maybe one, two? In his time so far, and who knows how long that's been. Both times he killed them without thinking about the innocent possessed. Once upon a time, that might have bothered him, not trying to save them, but he knows better now: if you don't kill them, they just come back hungrier.

The demons who look at him before he kills them can't seem to decide between fear and awe. Some of them try to say things that for a demon are almost _nice – you beat the devil, Sammy, you win, come on, what's one little demon, don't you have better things to do? _

He's done with mercy, though, just as much as he's done with living. Even if Dean's number is burning a hole in his heart and Bobby's is burning a hole in his brain, and he stands in front of a pay phone once for almost an hour because he doesn't know if calling or not calling is a better answer.

He runs into some hunters outside of El Paso, Texas and they try to talk to him about the Apocalypse, leaning in close and asking if the stories are true, if the Winchesters killed the devil, and he just stares at them until they back off and leave, though to the one that lingers he manages to say, "Dean. It was Dean."

He hopes that's the story that spreads, that Dean Winchester saved the world.

Sam doesn't drink the way he did when Dean went to Hell. He doesn't have nightmares. He remembers everything about Hell and everything Lucifer did and every moment of his time – but it doesn't matter. The part of him that feels things and needs things like alcohol to fill the holes seems to have been left behind, maybe on the road, maybe in Hell.

Nothing lasts forever.

He knows that, Sam does. All the Winchesters do, or did. (He hopes maybe the other one still alive has forgotten.) And of course this has been coming for a while; there's only so many times the noose can be slipped before it closes.

Stupid, though. Just a ghost; a vicious one, sure, but _nothing Sam couldn't handle. _

He leans back against the cabinet, trying to conserve his energy. Three long, parallel slashes slice deep into muscle and flesh diagonally across his torso, and his hands can't keep it all in. He's already too weak to move and even the warm blood running down his chest and stomach isn't keeping him from shivering.

Alone in an abandoned house, it could be weeks before anyone found his body.

And then someone else's hands are pressing over the gashes and his body bucks with the sudden reminder of pain. "Sam," someone says, far away. "_Sam?_"

It strikes Sam as faintly funny that _now _he feels something. "Dean?" He says, faintly, and can taste blood on the back of his tongue. His brother's hands, trying to stop the bleeding. "Bit – bit late."

"And whose fault is that," Dean says, and his voice is hoarse. Sam reaches out blindly, clutches at Dean's sleeve with weakening fingers. "Come on, Sam. Hold on."

He tugs Dean's sleeve, to show how much he is holding on. "Am. You aren't…in Indiana."

"Came looking for you, you idiot." Sam knows that if Dean's hands weren't busy trying to keep his guts inside then he would have brushed Sam's hair back then, just like he used to. "Look what happens? Couldn't you have waited for me? Didn't you get my message?"

"Threw," Sam coughs, "Threw my cell away. Sorry." His eyes drag closed, too heavy to keep open. "That hurts, Dean. Can you…stop?"

"No," Dean says, and he sounds like he wants to cry. "No, not letting go this time. Not this time. I'm here. I'm not leaving you."

Sam can't remember how to smile, but he tries his best. "Shouldn't have come. I don't… don't feel so great." Dean's hands press harder, and Sam hisses. He doesn't have to look down to see how useless it is.

"Yeah, I know." Dean's voice is taut. "S'okay, though. Ambulance is coming. Need you alive to beat the shit out of you."

"Not much of a reason to work on being alive, Dean-o," Sam says, and knows he's delirious because that's only ever what their dad called his big brother. He blinks, slow, not sure that his eyes will open again. "It's okay."

"No," Dean corrects him, "But it will be."

There are sirens in the distance. Sam swallows and lets his head fall back. He closes his eyes and hears Dean's intake of breath, shuddery, like it hurts his chest to inflate. (It couldn't, Sam muses, hurt half as much as Sam's chest does just now.)

"Hold on," Dean is saying, both hands trying so hard to keep the blood inside Sam's body, and failing with every heartbeat. "Hold on, Sammy. I've got you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to leave you."

Life goes on without me, Sam could have said. Or, Indiana needs you. Or just, thank you. He stares blankly up at the ceiling, unable to find the words, and thinks about the stars whirling ceaselessly overhead, pinpricks of angel's grace in a darkened sky.


	2. And Also A Day

Dean could not claim to know what happiness was, but he did know what it wasn't. And it wasn't this.

There were moments; fantastic moments, beautiful moments. Lisa was wonderful – stupid enough to take him in – and Ben was as adorable as he remembered. He didn't miss hunting, and suburban life suited him in a lot of ways, even if he still reached for the handgun that wasn't under his pillow when he woke in the middle of the night. He worked in construction and drove Ben to school, but not in the Impala which was safely gathering dust in the garage.

But it was – _all right, _this normal life stuff. He'd just been through the end of the world, didn't he deserve a break?

But it wasn't happiness. His heart felt too small and the cavity of his chest felt too big. Sam was rotting in Hell, and he'd had enough. Just – enough.

Dean'd expected nightmares – of Sam beating his face to a pulp, of Sam falling back into the pit dragging Adam with him, of Sam saying breathlessly _it's all right, I've got him. _He didn't dream, though, not at all.

Three months into his life with Lisa, he woke to a figure cast in shadow standing over him. He yelled and scrambled under the pillow before the cool-warm hand settled over his mouth. "Dean," said Castiel's voice, and he thought he heard a strain there, "Please meet me downstairs. Lisa and Ben will not wake. We need to talk."

He opened his mouth to say that he was not going to put up with angel bullshit anymore, not even from Cas, but the angel was already gone in a rush of wings, and Dean decided that it was worth getting up to tell him.

So he wandered downstairs in pajama pants and bare feet, and found Castiel standing stiffly in the middle of the living room, in front of the window. "I'm not," Dean started to say, rubbing his eyes and frowning, but Castiel cut him off. He looked…guilty.

That didn't bode well.

"I am sorry, I must – I should not be telling you this."

Even better. Dean groaned. "Cas, I'm _done. _Okay? Done. I promised Sam-" Castiel winced, and Dean scowled.

"No, of course – I am not here to ask. I am here to – I promised, but I think it is best that I – break this promise. I hope you will forgive me."

"Cas, spit it out."

"Sam Winchester," Cas said, his voice flat like he was reciting some sentence well practiced, "has returned from Hell." And Dean felt his too-small heart stutter and stop.

"_What?_"

Castiel looked – helpless. And even more guilty. "He is on Earth, and – only your brother. Two months ago. I do not know where he is now. He requested that I say nothing to you and I said I would not, but it did not…feel right."

"Damn right it didn't," Dean snapped. "It shouldn't. Sam knows that." He didn't have to ask why. It was Sam who'd asked him to promise, and Sam'd never expected to come back. He probably thought it wasn't his place or something equally – stupid. Like it would ever not be his place to be with Dean. "Can't you find him?" He added. Castiel sighed.

"After we last…spoke. Somehow he has hidden himself from me."

"Then we'll just have to do this the old fashioned way," Dean said firmly, and Castiel paused, then nodded.

"I will search as well. If you like. I believe that Sam will be angry with me."

"He can be angry as much as he wants," Dean said, "You did the right thing."

~.~

Lisa looks disappointed but not surprised. She tells him to go. Ben is harder, full of questions and an expression painfully concerned and confused. "I lost my little brother," he tries to explain. "I just have to find him again. Then I'll be back."

Ben frowns so much he looks more like Sam at that age than Dean, and the thought makes a heartstring snap and curl up in his chest.

He takes the Impala because it seems like the right thing to do, and starts to follow Sam.

His brother's been busy, Dean realizes. Hunting, of course. Dean supposes he probably doesn't know how to do anything else anymore, and that's almost funny since that used to be Dean. Three states from Indiana in a Podunk town a motel owner finally recognizes Sam. "Yeah," he says, "I seen him. Paid in cash. Pretty old for such a young guy. Couple years older 'n you, I'd guess."

Dean winces.

A little more poking around and he works out that the town was dealing with a series of grave robberies. People were just starting to vanish. Both stopped on the day the motel owner told him Sam checked out. Two months cold, the trail, but he learns what kind of car Sam was driving, looks it up on the database online, and learns that it was dumped barely five miles out of town.

Dead end.

People everywhere he goes, following Sam, say the same things. Old. Tired. One friendly old woman who was having trouble with a poltergeist says more. "Talked to me a bit, afterwards. Got a bit of glass in him from my cabinet, told him I'd call the hospital and he just about flipped his lid – sewed it up himself, bless me, right in my kitchen. Dental floss and warm water and just about nothing else – talked to me while he did it, to distract himself, he said. Poor boy." She clicked her tongue and pushed a cup at Dean. "More tea?"

_Oh, Sammy. _He ignored the tea and took a moment to breathe before asking. "What'd you talk about?"

"Well, I asked where he'd been, to be able to do that kind of thing, if he'd been in the service. He said – I think he said 'yeah, you could say that,' and I asked where and he said 'Hell.' So then I asked where his family was and he said he didn't have much, just an older brother, and that he wasn't around, that he didn't want to bother him."

Dean shifted uncomfortably. The woman's eyes were shrewd as she stared at him. "And I said that was rubbish, and he shook his head and that's when he finished his stitches and just said 'thank you, ma'am' and up and left without saying nothing more. Didn't even give me the chance to tell him what I thought of a big brother who'd leave him hanging like that."

Dean cleared his throat and said, "I thought he was dead." The old woman's expression of scolding melted away and she leaned forward, reaching out her hands and squeezing Dean's.

"Oh, dear…I'm sorry. War does terrible things to young men. You're looking for him, then? I hope you find him. Or he finds you."

"Me too," Dean said, and left before he could start getting weepy.

Sam was like a hurricane, cutting a swathe of complete lack of supernatural activity through his wake, leaving stories of exorcised demons and banished ghosts and a few dead shapeshifters here and there too. Dean would have been proud, but he could see the pattern in the bodies, of desperation, a need to fill permanent emptiness with anything there was.

He found some hunters who'd met Sam – met him and left him alive, thank _God _– and they looked at Dean with awe he didn't understand until one of them asked to shake his hand and whispered, "He told us you'd retired. Wouldn't blame you. Icing the _Devil, _man, that deserves retirement if anything does," and all Dean had been able to ask was, "Who?"

"Your brother," they said, and Dean wasn't surprised at all. He wanted to tell them that they had it wrong, that Sam had killed the Devil (or as good as anyone could) and saved the world, but they would just think it was modesty. Seemed sometimes like Sam could deflect compliments when he wasn't even there.

In the end, it was pure chance that he saw the car Sam'd been driving – for a few months now, that was helpful – parked on the side of the road. He followed the dirt path down and found a broken down house, too quiet. No crashes, no sounds of a fight or a struggle or a shovel biting into earth to dig up a skeleton.

Dean picked up his handgun, checked the ammo, and crept up to the front door. Still silence, and he stepped inside, looked left and then right.

His first impression was that they were all wrong; his brother didn't look older. He looked so much younger. His second was that there was blood glistening all down his front and that was so wrong, so _wrong. _

He dropped the gun and to his knees, pressing his hands over the deep slashes that some damn ghost or creature had left on his little brother. Sam's eyes were closed, and Dean felt more than heard the words spilling out of his mouth, shh, hold still, it's all right. He called 911, one hand pressed trying to cover Sam's chest and belly in five fingers. _Please, _he said, and _hurry. _

"Dean?" said Sam's voice.

He wanted to be angry. He wanted to be anything but this. He dropped the cell phone, still talking, saying stupid things as he tried to keep the blood inside his brother's body, and why did this always happen to _them?_

"Dean," said Sam again, a sigh, and his eyes were dragging closed.

"Stay with me," he said, desperately, "Stay with me." He could hear the sirens, but they weren't coming fast enough. "Help's coming. Just hold on."

Hand on the muscle over Sam's ribs, trying to keep it all together, himself and his little brother – he could be glad that he could feel his heartbeat so close to the surface. (And it was Sam's heartbeat, it _was, _it wasn't just the pulse of Dean's own shriveled heart beating way down in his hand.

Please, let that be true.)


End file.
